We aren’t seeing it in the the Texas Panhandle. Members of Congress are facing challenges from the left and the right. My colleague Enrique Rangel reported this week that many Texas Republican state lawmakers face challenges from within their own party.

How, then, do you explain that U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Clarendon, is heading for re-election virtually unopposed. No one filed against him in his own GOP primary. There isn’t a Democrat to be found in the 13th Congressional District — which spans more than 40,000 square miles from the Panhandle to just north of the Metroplex — who was willing to challenge the veteran lawmaker.

He has some minor-party opposition, which he’ll vanquish without breaking a sweat.

Thornberry is breathing easily, which incumbents do when no one challenges them on the votes they cast on the public’s behalf. He’ll surely say that his job performance rating is high because his constituents approve of the job he is doing. But I keep hearing some grumbles from those who say they’re angry at “all of them” in power in Washington. By “all,” I guess they mean just those who represent someone else’s interests.

But it seems a bit odd that the political storm that is brewing all around us keeps missing this region. I’m still trying to figure out precisely why that is happening.